


Clash of the Elements Part 1: A Flame Reborn

by mewmaster93



Series: Clash of the Elements [1]
Category: Mario & Luigi RPG (Video Games), Mario Story | Paper Mario, Super Mario Bros., Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-08
Updated: 2013-03-08
Packaged: 2017-12-04 16:35:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/712801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mewmaster93/pseuds/mewmaster93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mario has found himself wrapped up in a quest to bring about the rebirth of the Elemental Overlord. With many allies both new and old, Mario will soon see himself being wrapped up in the mysteries of his planets that he never once knew existed...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue/Chapter 1: The Chosen

_**"Gods are powerful beings. They can have a multitude of strange and mystifying powers. They could use these powers as keepers of the peace, or become creatures of rampant destruction..."** _

_**"Sometimes though, even the gods will find themselves challenged by the demons of hell..."** _

_**In the distant past, there was once a great war fought by the herald of Heaven, the Elemental Overlord, and a enigmatic being that is named by many as the "Dark King". Their armies of demons and angels fought a great war to control the balance of light and darkness...The minions fought in the reaches of space, but the two titans had to fight their battle on a lone, lifeless planet...** _

"GRAAAAH!" A loud and demonic voice screams in agony. The voice comes from a shadowy yet beastly looking figure, whose body appears to have been scarred deeply, with a pure black stream of blood flowing out of his hulking body. He finds it hard to stand on his beastly legs, and starts to wobble over. Clad in armor that could be described as been crafted by the heavens themselves is a middle aged man, who stands on the rocky structure of the planet with blade in hand. The beast stares at his holy foe, anger being the only emotion on his mind as he looks at him. He gathers enough energy to stand on his feet again, and growls at the man. "Why do you stand before me, Overlord?"

The warrior frowns, and points his sword at the beast. "I will not answer your question, for you already know the answer." The man says in a calm tone. He then quickly slashes his blade across the ground, sending a wave of light energy across the ground in an attempt to trip up his weak legged foe. The beast surprises the warrior by lifting his massive body off the ground and flying into the air to avoid the light wave. As the light travels below him, it leaves behind a road of energy on the ground. The warrior then swings his sword upward to cause the light road to fire a rain of light energy streams at the beast. The beast flies to the left to avoid the attack. Once he notices that his opponent is off-guard for this brief period of time, he opens his mouth. Two tentacles burst out from his back and move towards the sides of his jaw, their tips gathering dark energy from the depths of space above them to form a sphere of darkness in front of his mouth.

When the orb is around the size of his mouth, the beast inhales the energy into himself and fires it back out in the form of a massive beam of red and black energy. The warrior lifts his sword up to defend against the beam. This scene is frozen in the tablets of history, which is currently in the hands of a short old man with swirly glasses, a white lab coat, and a little bundle of grey hairs on his head that is shaped into the shape of an ice cream swirl. He is reading the contents of this tablet to a medium sized Italian man who is wearing a red shirt and blue overalls, a red hat with a red "M" imprinted on a white circle in the front, and two white gloves. He has blue eyes, a thick and wavy black mustache, and a large round nose on his face. "And that, Mario, is the tale of the Elemental Overlord. Oh ho ho ho ho ho." The old man says.

The portly Italian man crosses his arms and thinks. "So what a-happened to the a-guy after that a-battle?" Mario asks. "Oh ho ho ho, that's the fun part Mario." The old man says. "He managed to defeat the Dark King and sealed him away forever." "I guess that's understandable" Mario says. "I'm not done yet." The man says. "Sorry Professor E. Gadd." Mario says in an apologetic tone. "The Overlord ended up suffering grave wounds that put him at the edge of death. Wanting the world to still have a protector just like himself, he split his powers into seven separate stones and placed them in temples scattered across this very planet!" E. Gadd exclaims. Mario wonders about something. "What is with this a-planet and the number a-seven?" He says to himself. "Anyways, I have managed to find a giant tablet that details the exact locations of each temple! Unluckily though, I have to translate the passages to find out where each temple is located at. In the mean time though, I need you to go somewhere for me." The old professor says.

"Oh? Where do you want a-me to a-go?" Mario asks. "Planet Earth." As E. Gadd says this, and ominous latin chorus goes off in the background. Mario is quick to notice this. "Where did that a-come from?" Mario asks. "Oh, I seem to have gotten a call on my Shell Phone. Hold on a second Mario." E. Gadd then pulls out a small green turtle shell from his lab coat pocket and answers it. "Hello? Oh yes, this is Professor E. Gadd. Oh ho ho ho, so the parts will arrive four days from now? Excellent, thanks." E. Gadd turns his phone off and puts it back into the pocket of his lab coat. "Who was that?" Mario asks. "Delivery company, they are going to be delivering some hydraulic parts to me later that I will use to upgrade F.L.U.D.D. into a more powerful device. Oh ho ho ho ho." E. Gadd chuckles. "What about that a-chorus? Was that your a-ringtone?" Mario asks. "Oh heavens no. To be honest, I have no clue where that chorus came from. But there are more important things to worry about, so let me get back to what I was talking about." E. Gadd says.

"You see, there is a prophecy that states that a special boy shall inherit the overlord's sacred powers, and be reborn from the flames as the protector of all worlds. The prophecy states that he must be guided to the seven elemental temples and a stone must be taken from each one. Once all the stones are gathered, it is said the way to the Origin Temple will be revealed...The rest of the prophecy is chipped off from that point, but it seems like a pretty simple task." E. Gadd says. Mario nods his head in agreement. "Wait...Earth is a pretty big a-place last I a-checked. How will I find this a-boy?" Mario asks. "Oh ho ho ho." E. Gadd laughs in amusement. "Amazingly enough, the tablet I found contains precise coordinates that says where the child of prophecy is."

"That's seems a tad too convenient." Mario points out. "Well, they say the Overlord was also an oracle of sorts, with his ability to see the future, I wouldn't put it past him to know where his reincarnation would be born at." E. Gadd says. "Ok...So how will I get to a-Earth?" Mario asks. "Oh ho ho ho, I may be old, but that doesn't mean that I didn't think of this!" E. Gadd says. The old man walks over to a giant grey cloth that is hanging in front of a wall and tugs the corner of it. The cloth falls off an octagonal shaped, red and white striped gate. "Behold my latest invention... The **STARGADD**!" E. Gadd exclaims, the last part of his sentence carrying a much louder tone than the rest of his sentence. "Interesting..." Mario says. "I know right?" E. Gadd says. "This simple looking device will allow anyone to travel to any location in the known universe! As long as you know the name of the planet you wish to go to OR you know the name of a person or place on the planet, then you can travel anywhere your heart desires! For example, say you wanted to go to the Beanbean Kingdom quickly, you would just have to mention a part of the Kingdom like Jokes End or Teehee Valley, or a person that lives there like Lady Lima or Queen Bean. Here, let me show you."

E. Gadd types in some info into the Stargadd's control panel, and a multicolored swirling portal appears in the center of the metallic frame. "Be right back Mario." E. Gadd says. The old professor then walks through the portal. Mario watches in amazement, but he doesn't have to watch long for E. Gadd ends up coming back out of the portal a few seconds later with a Whacka Bump in his hands. "I set the coordinates for Pirate's Grotto. More specifically, I set them for the Whacka that lives there. This Bump is proof that I went to that exact location." E. Gadd then flings the Bump onto a nearby steel table. "So, got any other questions Mario?" E. Gadd asks. Mario shakes his head. "Ok then." E. Gadd walks over to the control panel and types in some new coordinates. The portal shows no signs of change, but Mario bravely steps into it to take a journey to Earth. Little did he know that this would be the start of the longest week of his life...

**Clash of the Elements Part 1: A Flame Reborn**

**Chapter 1: The Chosen**

On Earth, in a mountain range, we see a young brown haired boy jogging across the mountain range. He jogs until he reaches the top of the mountain. As he reaches the top, we can see the rest of his body. His eyes are dark blue, he's wearing a red short sleeved shirt, black jeans, and a red watch. His hair is medium length, and a bowl cut to it. His body is sweating, and the sweat that drips down his face flies into the air due to the cool yet subtle breeze that fills the mountain air. The boy's stomach growls. "Well, that was a nice jog and all, but it seems as though my body requires nourishment. It's almost noon too...That walk took about thirty minutes today." The boy turns around to head back down the hill when a wild billy goat crosses his path. "A wild billy goat? ...Oh cr-" The boy is cut off when the billy goat uses his massive horns to ram right into the boy's gut. The impact of the goat's horns sends the boy flying backwards off the top of the cliff.

At the bottom of this mountain range lies a medium sized two story yellow house with a brown rooftop. A swirly multicolored portal opens up a few feet away from the house, and our heroic plumber jumps out of it. He looks around, and a feeling of nostalgia rushes through his mind. "Ah, good ol' a-Earth. I remember when I used to live in a-Brooklyn, and I was a construction a-worker...Good a-times...Good a-times." Mario says. "AAUGHH!" A voice yells out from above. "Hmmm?" Mario says. He looks up, only to find the body of the boy rapidly descending towards his face. "MAMA M-" Mario exclaims, but is cut off when the boy falls down right on top of him. Both Mario and him are KO'd for a few minutes, but the boy regains his consciousness first. He grips his head tightly with his left hand. "Ugh, that hurt..." He says. He then gets up onto his two feet and looks around. "That's odd, I thought I heard a person yelling..." He looks around some more just to make sure that no one is stalking him, but only sees an indent in the ground where he landed, and the body of a fat Italian man that has filled in that indent.

"Ah, nothing unusual here..." The boy says, before proceeding to walk towards his house, then he freezes in place when he realizes that he just flattened a fat Italian man. Then he turns around slowly when he realizes that the person he is referring to is THE Mario, and upon realizing that he starts sweating like mad because he has no clue how to react to the fact that a supposed fictional character is lying on the ground away from him, though that doesn't last for long as the portly plumber awakens from his slumber and begins to lift his head up off the grass. "Ugh...Mama mia, what fell on me?" Mario weakly asks, before opening his eyes to see the boy staring at him with a happy expression painted across his face. "Hey, are you ok Mario?" The boy asks. "Yeah, I'm a-fin-" Mario suddenly wonders as to how the boy knew of his name. "Waaaaaait, how do you know my a-name?" Mario asks. "Oh? You don't know?" The boy says with a curious look on his face.

"No..." Mario says. "Well, you look pretty beat up. I'll carry you inside my house and we'll talk about both of our tales over a hot plate of spaghetti!" Alex exclaims. Mario, knowing that he has a mission to accomplish, is almost reluctant to follow this boy into his house, but he is curious about how he is know on Earth, AND the coordinates did bring him here, so this boy is probably the one he is looking for, unless other people are living in this house. "Ok, I suppose I will come in." Mario says. "Alright!" The boy excitedly says. He then carries the weakened Mario towards the front door of his house. A few minutes later, the plumber and the boy are sitting on some chairs in the living room with hot plates of spaghetti in front of them. "So, about how you know of a-me?" Mario asks.

"I do owe you an explanation. First off, let me get a couple things out of the way. Sorry for falling on you, first of all." The boy says. Mario just waves his hand around. "No a-problem." He says. "Second, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Alex Whiter." The boy says, extending his hand out to properly greet Mario "Nice to a-meet you Alex." Mario says, extending his hand out as well so both of them can shake. After they are done shaking they retract their hands. "Alright, now let me talk to you about yourself. Or at least, how this world interprets you." Alex says.

Alex ends up spending the next hour explaining to Mario about the many wondrous video games that a company called Nintendo had produced. His brief descriptions of each game remind Mario exactly of the types of adventures he has gone through in his life. He is also thrilled to know that his games have had such a great and positive impact on not just gamers' lives, but the lives of the rest of the populace as well. When Mario hears that all this was possible thanks to a single man named Shigeru Miyamoto, he sheds a single tear from his left eye. Alex finishes up the tale of Mario's adventures on Earth by this point. "And that's the whole tale. To be honest, I'm surprised you are able to talk and all. Pretty much all the games have you as a mute for the most part." Alex says.

"Fiction and a-reality are very a-different." Mario says. "Indeed" Alex responds. "By the way, what are you doing here anyways?" Alex curiously asks. Mario flinches for a brief moment. He knew that this moment was coming, but during the time he spent in awe over Alex's tales he didn't come up with a way to break it to him, so he decided to stall for a bit by asking a question. "Say, do you have any brothers or a-sisters that live in this a-house?" Mario asks. Alex shakes his head. "Nope, only child." He responds. In this time Mario is able to figure out just what he needs to say. "Well, I have to a-tell you this then Alex..." Mario says. For the next five minutes Mario explains the tale of the Element Overlord that E. Gadd had talked to him about, along with the prophecy and how he got to Earth in the first place. When Mario is done, Alex's expression has changed from happy to surprised.

"M-m-m-me?" Alex says, his eyes lit up like a couple of firefly lights. "There must be some mistake, I mean seriously! There's no way that that could be possible!" Alex says. "Prophecy states a set of a-coordinates on Earth Alex, I find a-you here, and without any other a-kids living here, you are the only a-one that could match up the a-prophecy." Alex suddenly frowns. "Mario, there is something seriously wrong with that logic." He says. "Oh?" Mario asks. "First off, the guy predicted EXACTLY where the person who was going to become his reincarnation would live, yet never gave any details as to what he will look like, second, it doesn't sound like he specified a year when the person would be living here, so that means that the time period when the real reincarnation person might've lived around here could've already passed! It sounds too contrived to assume that I'm the Overlord's reincarnation at all..." Alex says.

"...Well, that is quite a-true Alex. Still, I've come all this a-way looking for a-person like a-you. Destiny comes knocking to a-those who least expect it after-a all." Mario says. "So will you a-come and at least a-try and see if this prophecy was a-meant for a-you?" He asks, tilting his head while waiting for an answer. Alex thinks about Mario's words, and comes up with an answer. "Ok, I will go with you Mario." He says. Mario readjusts his head back into it's normal position and smiles. "Alrighty then Alex. Let's-a go!" He exclaims with a feeling of intense excitement. "Okay!" Alex exclaims. The two of them then head outside of Alex's house, with Alex giving the old home a good ol' goodbye before he leaves. "I'll be back someday!" Alex says while waving at the house. Mario then realizes something. "Wait! What about your a-parents?" Mario says.

Alex stops waving, his body freezes up, and he starts sweating slightly. He turns around and nervously rubs the back of his head while his eyes are closed. "Well, you see...About that. They are off on an extended vacation to Paris. They won't be back for a week, so I'm good until then." Alex says, his body continuing to sweat. Mario glares at Alex in suspicion of his tale, but just shrugs. "Meh, I guess that understandable." Mario points out. Alex calms down and his body stops sweating. They then head through the swirly multicolored portal to head back to E. Gadd's lab. Behind a nearby tree, a mysterious person walks out from behind it. "Where are you going, Whiter?" The person says in a deep voice. Back in the Portal from Alex's perspective, you can see what the portal looks like on the inside. On the sides of the portal, you can see various events from old Mario Games, like the Minus World trick, Mario tossing Bowser into a spiked ball, the Galaxy Exploding, Mario vs. Super Dimentio, and various other events from the Mario series as well. At the very end of the portal journey, a bright light engulfs the both of them, leaving them back in E. Gadd's lab, even though the place now seems slightly torn up.

Alex looks a bit concerned. "This is E. Gadd's lab? I know the man's a bit of a mad scientist and all, but I expected him to keep a tidier workplace than this..." He says, his eyes shut slightly to show concern for the shape of the lab. E. Gadd comes crawling across the ground, his body beaten and bruised. Mario's eyes widen and he rushes over to check up on him. He's still alive, despite the wounds that have been placed on his body. Alex walks over to E. Gadd as well. E. Gadd slowly raises his head up and looks at Mario, his glasses cracked around the edges. "Mario..You came back..." E. Gadd weakly says. "What happened while I was a-gone Professor?" Mario asks. The Professor's body trembles with fear, and he finds it hard to say the name of the person who did this, but with what little energy he has left at this time, he is able to mutter a name that Mario thought he'd never hear again. "Cackletta..." The Professor then faints, Mario's expression changes to total shock, and Alex wonders whats going on. "Mario?" Alex asks in a timid tone. Mario gets up, and rushes for the exit of the lab. "Mario!" Alex exclaims as he rushes after him. "Wait up! What's going on? Mario!"

_Next Chapter: The Witch Returns! The Mustard of Doom Tastes Sour!_


	2. Return of the Witch

**Chapter 2: Return of the Witch.**

Mario and Alex run out of E. Gadd's lab, and see a small green man in a red cloak and a helmet, using a tube from said helmet to fire green orbs at the mushroom shaped buildings. As he destroys everything around him, he laughs like a madman. He is being watched over by a tall green person with purple and yellow striped beans on her head, who is also wearing a purple robe that wraps around her whole body. "Ahahahahah! This brings me great joy! Like a little kid on a ride that exists in a park that is amusing! Mistress Cackletta, shall I continue?" The small man turns his head to look at his accomplice, waiting eagerly for her to respond. "Yes Fawful, you may continue destroying the place until he shows u-" The woman hears footsteps quickly approaching her, and turns around to find both Mario and the young boy running at her. The two of them stop just a few feet away from the two enemies. "Huh, took you long enough to show up, plumber..." Cackletta brushes aside both parts of her robe.

The portly plumber takes a few moments to take in the fact that one of his old enemies Cackletta, who he saw die right before his very eyes, is standing before him alive and well. As he does this, the short man called Fawful turns himself around, and upon seeing Mario he starts laughing once more. "I have also returned! Like the germs made of the creatures that make my bacon compressed into the form of an aerial disease!" Mario didn't even notice that the little green man was there, and is just as surprised to see him as he is to see Cackletta. "Cackletta! Fawful! How are you two still alive?" The plumber asks. "Ehehehehe!" The witch responds with her signature laugh. "If I told you, that would ruin the fun."

"So what do you want this time, you vile witch?" Alex asks, punching his open right hand with his left fist. "...Who is this annoying brat?" Cackletta says, pointing one of her wrinkled fingers in the direction of where the boy is currently standing, an action which she takes back not a moment after wards. "Whatever, I don't particularly care. I won't give away all the details...I'll just say that I found that tablet of yours to be a rather pleasant read..." As the witch grins, Mario gets a surprised look on his face. "Is that why you beat up E. Gadd?" He says. "Yes, I beat him up because he was unwilling to give up the location...At first, that is..." Cackletta's grin widens, and as the plumber gets a scowl on his face, Fawful sees the need to add in to the conversation. " Yes, like a criminal in an interrogation room, he was unwilling to talk until his mind was probed in a fashion similar to that of a person who does the reading of the mind!"

"Quiet Fawful." Cackletta says with a hint of annoyance in her voice. "...I have fury." The little man whispers to himself. "I must admit though, this works out rather conveniently for me. Not only do I have the info that I require, but I will be able to finish off one of the two plumbers that ruined my plans in the Beanbean Kingdom!" With that said, Cackletta raises her left arm out to the side of her body. A lightning bolt comes down from above and almost smites Alex, but the boy manages to notice it in time and jumps backwards to get out of the way. "That was close..." Alex says, wiping some newly formed sweat off of his forehead with his arm. "Hey, Alex, now might be a bad time to ask, but can you a-fight?" Mario asks.

"Yeah, I know a few moves. But I suppose if you could give me the low-down on how she attacks, I should be able to take her." Mario nods his head, and Fawful looks annoyed, as he begins to mutter something to himself. "Why is Fawful being ignored?" Cackletta lowers her arm and gets a rather serious look on her face. "Hmm, nice dodge, but try this one on for size!" The witch raises her right arm, and for no explainable reason, time completely stops. Then the plumber walks over to Cackletta and turns himself around so he's looking at Alex. "When Cackletta raises her right arm, that means that she is going to attack me. When she raises her left arm, that means she is going to attack you." Mario walks back to his original spot and turns around once again to face the two enemies. Time resumes, and as a lightning bolt comes down, Mario jumps back to avoid it.

"I see I'll have to try something different..." Cackletta lowers her arm, but it only takes a few seconds for her to raise both arms out to the side. Once again, time stops, and Mario walks over to Cackletta. "Now that she has raised both of her arms, she'll send lightning bolts at both of us at the same time. Be on your a-guard, and you should be able to dodge her attacks and counter them with ease." The plumber walks back to his original location and when time resumes he and Alex both jump back to avoid the lightning bolts. However, a lightning bolt never targets Alex. Instead, another one aims for Mario, causing him to have to jump backwards once more. The witch lowers her arms as the plumber looks on in surprise. "Plumber, I don't know how time stopped, but don't go spouting off tutorials. What do you think this is, a game?"

"No." Mario responds to the witch. "Good...Now let us fight seriously. Fawful, you can take the boy. The plumber is mine..." Cackletta holds her hands out in front of her body and cracks her knuckles. Her companion lets out an ecstatic laugh in glee, and uses his willpower to command his helmet to start firing green orbs at the boy. While Alex takes the time to dodge the attacks, Mario sets his sights on the witch. "Now! Take this!" Cackletta snaps her crinkly fingers, and a hole opens up in the sky that fires a red laser beam at the plumber. Mario ducks to avoid the attack, but Cackletta summons another hole that fires yet another laser at him. To avoid this one, Mario somersaults along the ground towards the witch, rolling himself directly underneath the laser at the same time. Then the plumber gets on his feet and leaps upward to try and uppercut the witch, only for her to dodge the attack by retreating into a black dimensional hole she made in the ground.

Even when she vanishes, the hole stays in place, causing Mario to wave his arms around mid-air in fear. He had experienced these holes first hand, and he knew that even though the witch suffers no negative side effects from traveling through them, anyone she sends through them ends up getting hurt by magical forces that exist within. As he falls towards the hole he extends his arms out so his hands can grab hold of the edge and pull himself back up onto the ground unharmed. Once he does this, the hole seals up and Cackletta reappears a few feet behind him. "Ehehehehe..." As she laughs she raises her right arm, ready to send another lightning bolt crashing down upon Mario. The plumber turns around upon hearing her laugh, and manages to dodge the attack by rolling out of the way. Cackletta predicts where his roll will take him though, and summons forth another dimensional hole for him to fall into.

A few seconds after the hole is sealed up, Mario falls down from above and lands face first onto the ground. Then the witch raises both of her arms to summon two lightning bolts to come down from different directions to smite the fallen plumber. To avoid these incoming attacks, Mario presses his hands against the ground and lifts the rest of his body up into the air, then leaps upward to dodge both lightning bolts with ease. Then the portly plumber spins his body around so his feet are facing the ground, and once he lands he puts one knee on the ground and slightly adjusts his hat to the left. "You are persistant, plumber..." Cackletta says in a complimentary tone. Mario responds by standing up and dusting his gloves off. "Says the one who came back only to be defeated once again." "We'll just see about that..." The witch prepares to cast another spell at Mario, her left hand filling with magical energy...

Meanwhile, Alex is managing to avoid the brunt of Fawful's barrage of energy orbs by jumping over the ones that are aimed at the ground and rolling under the ones that are aimed at his face. "Fawful has fury over the fact that this isn't working! Now Fawful shall switch to a new method which is appropriately given the name that is the second letter of the alphabet!" With those words said, the little green man lifts his stubby little arms up and taps a small red button on the back of his helmet. His headgear stops firing and the metallic mouth-like device that was shooting the orbs retracts into the helmet itself. A few seconds later though, four metallic appendages begin to emerge from around the helmet. Before they've even extended six inches out of the helmet, Alex jumps at Fawful and kicks him hard in the chin, sending him flying into a nearby tree. The man's impact with the tree causes it to be split in half, the upper half being turned on it's side and falling onto the ground once gravity takes hold of it.

"What, you think I was just going to stand still and let you do whatever it is you were trying to do?" Though Alex acts confident now, the moment he sees a mechanical claw thrust out at the fallen tree and latch onto it, his pupils shrink as he slumps forward with a surprised drop of the jaw. As the wood is raised into the air, Alex is able to see the source of the claw coming from behind it. Fawful is standing tall, lifted up off the ground by three other mechanical arms. "Now then, I shall..." Fawful stays silent for a few moments, finding it hard to come up with a witty comment for this situation. "Fawful's got nothing...CHORTLES!" With that remark the little green man commands his arms to toss the tree at Alex. Having seen this coming though, mainly due to the fact that Fawful waited too long to toss it, the boy is able to get out of the way by running to the left.

As he keeps running, Alex tries to come up with a plan to deal with the arms, but finds that with four of them there it will be impossible for him to remove even one of them from the helmet without the others grabbing a hold of him. "Guess I'll just have to stall until Mario deals with Cackletta..." The boy thinks to himself. Then he notices a rock that is roughly the size of Fawful's helmet lying on the ground a few feet away from him. "Unless..." The young boy waits until Fawful lashes one of his metal tentacles at him, then proceeds to lunge forward and roll along the ground beneath it to end up near the rock. He then quickly gets back on his feet and places his hands around the rock. He tries to use all of his strength to pull the rock out of the ground, but it turns out he underestimated just how big the object truly was and is thus unable to make it budge even an inch.

"Huh...Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time." As he regrets his folly, Alex hears the mechanical whirring of Fawful's helmet as the little green man turns himself around and gets ready to send another tentacle at him. Before the strike can occur, the young boy turns and watches as Mario leaps into the air behind Fawful and stomps hard on his helmet, disrupting the man's concentration and preventing the attack from happening in the process. As the plumber lands on the other side and grabs the edge of his cap, one of Cackletta's lightning attacks smites Fawful, even though Mario was her intended target. This attack short-circuits the helmet and causes the tentacles to retract, forcing Fawful to stay suspended in the air for a few seconds as he looks around nervously. He then rears his head back and begins to chuckle. "I have fury!" Is what he yells before he falls onto the ground.

A quick look at the witch reveals that the magical energy has left her hands, and she has folded both of them back into her cloak. "Well, that was a well-played move, plumber. You saved your little companion there from certain death...For now." Mario turns around and as he stares right into the eyes of the evil witch, Alex turns his head and nervously rubs the back of his head. "Heh...Thanks a lot there Mario, I really shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place..." The plumber glances to the left and nods his head slightly in agreement. "Yes, but it's alright, you aren't used to these situations. Just try and be a little more a-careful, ok?" "Ok" Alex says quickly in response.

Cackletta looks at the two heroes, changing her glance from Mario to Alex, then back to Mario once more before slowly lifting her left hand up, indicating that she is going to target the very aware plumber. Mario jumps into the air, only for Cackletta to reveal that she lifted that arm to fake him out, and quickly raises her right arm to slowly summon a dimensional hole from underneath Alex's feet. Since he is being affected by the pull of gravity, there is no way for Mario to get over there in time to grab him by the hand and pull him out. Though he looks to be doomed, the young boy has a smile on his face while his body refuses to fall into the hole. This causes Cackletta to raise her brow in suspicion. "Eh? What manner of sorcery is this? ...That sounded weird coming from me, personally."

"No sorcery involved here Cackletta." Alex says as he wiggles his right pointer finger out at the witch. "I can fly, but I guess you wouldn't know that, seeing as you just met me. Now, if you don't mind..." The young boy flies forward and lifts his foot into the air, delivering a powerful kick right into the witch's shocked face, the force of his attack sending her flying into a Mushroom House that had been broken apart by Fawful's earlier blasts. After lowering his feet and skidding along the ground to a stop, Alex watches as Cackletta slowly rises out of the rubble. Though her face is marked by the pattern on the sole of the young boy's shoe, she looks relatively unharmed. Despite this, she waves her hand and summons a dimensional hole right beside herself and Fawful, her face grinning with joy as she does so.

"Come Fawful, we must retreat and think up a new strategy." Alex gets ready to jump at the witch to prevent her escape, but both her and her colleague slip into the holes just as they close up, leaving the young boy to snap his fingers in disappointment. "She got away..." Alex stands still for a few seconds, before remembering that Mario is still in the area. "Oh!" He blurts out in surprise before quickly turning around to see that the plumber's jaw has greatly dropped with his wide-open in shock. "W-W-What was that?" Mario stutters out loud. "Umm...You were seeing things?" Alex nervously says to try and sway the plumber away from the subject. "Oh no I a-wasn't! There are only a few ways that one can fly in this a-world, and because you just came here you couldn't possibly be in a-possession of any of them, so how were you able fly just now?" "I'd like to answer your question Mario, I really would, but shouldn't we go check up on E. Gadd first?" Mario shakes his head as he too remembers that they left the Professor in the lab, and after getting a serious look on his face he nods his head in agreement with Alex's idea and the two of them rush back into the lab.

_Next Chapter: To the Woods we go!_


	3. Welcome to the Mushroom Kingdom!

**Chapter 3: Welcome to the Mushroom Kingdom!**

With the battle with Cackletta over with, Mario and Alex rush back down into E. Gadd's lab. They expect to find the professor still on the ground in pain and his lab in ruins, but when they reach the bottom of the staircase what they see is the exact opposite of what they assumed would be there. E. Gadd is sitting on a high chair near one of his lab tables with a stone tablet in hand and a single bandage on his forehead. As for the rest of the lab, from how clean is currently looked it would be impossible to tell that it was ever damaged in the first place. While Alex is flabbergasted by how that could be possible, Mario merely shrugs his shoulders and advances towards the professor.

"How are you not surprised by this Mario?" Alex asks. "Simple. E. Gadd is a scientist, I'm just plain used to this type of unexplainable stuff by now." The plumber responds while glancing over his left shoulder. "Hmm...Good point." The young boy mumbles under his breath while keeping his left fist pressed against the bottom of his chin while giving the issue at hand one last thought before he joins Mario in checking up on the professor. Having heard the two of them talking, E. Gadd turns his chair around to properly greet them. "Ah, welcome back Mario and..." The professor nudges his glasses while leaning his head forward to look at the boy he had never seen before. "...I assume you must be the boy that the prophecy referred to, yes?"

Having been distracted by curiosity at the many inventions he can see in the lab, it takes a moment for Alex to realize that he is being spoken to, and he promptly turns his head towards the professor in order to respond. "Uh-huh, that would be me...The name's Alex, and I've heard a lot of good things about you professor." He says in a complimentary tone. "Oh?" E. Gadd says with one raised eyebrow. "What did Mario say about me?" "Nothing, I just know about you because of the Mario video games I used to play on Earth." With Alex's quick response, the professor lets out one of his signature chuckles before placing the tablet flat onto the table. "So, there are games in your world that speak of our exploits? I'm quite intrigued by that...Any chance that you would be able to mention one of those particular games to us real quick?"

"Well, off the top of my head I remember a game that showed Mario and Luigi going through seven hotels that Bowser had set up for his kids to rescue Peach...I vaguely remember something about a toaster as well..." While Alex is deep in thought, Mario turns around and gives E. Gadd a confused glare and a shrug of the shoulders as its clear that neither one of them know about the events that the boy has stated. While the professor returns the plumber's shrug with one of his own, he can be seen nonchalantly tossing a memory erasing ray gun into a trash can behind him with a flick of his right fingers, the clanking noise it makes as it hits the side of the can drawing Alex's attention back towards E. Gadd.

"What was that noise?" He asks. "Oh, just was tossing an old can of soda into the trash...Anyways, thank you for that bit of info. Now, since you are both here alive, I can assume that you dealt with Cackletta and her incoherent companion?" The professor says to quickly change the subject. "Well, I wouldn't say we defeated her so much as she just considered her goal complete and chose to leave." Mario says while nervously rubbing the back of his head. "She did mention something about "reading a tablet" though before we fought her. I'm guessing the one she spoke of is the same one you currently have on the table?" Alex says while motioning his head in the direction of the stone slab.

E. Gadd takes his right hand and places it down onto the tablet while twisting his head around to look down onto it. "That is true, as much as I hate to admit it." He says with a deep tone of regret before lifting his head up and looking straight at his company. "Not long after you left, I hid the tablet underneath an invisibility field of my own design just in case any ne'er-do-wells were to show up to try and ransack the place. Sure enough, the witch made her presence known only a few minutes later. Using her dark sorcery, she tortured me about the tablet's location until her partner accidentally bumped into the field that kept the object hidden. Then, she used her magic to remove it and levitate the tablet up in front of her face in order to read it over. It didn't take her long to do so, but oddly enough instead of taking it with her she placed it back onto the table, let out a cackle or two, and left the lab without saying a word...I can assume she left because she saw the Stargadd's portal starting to stir with activity and assumed that you were returning..."

"That sounds horrible..." Alex says with a great deal of sympathy in his voice. "Oh, it was nothing too damaging...She just attacked my psych, which of course can't really work on someone with a mental capacity such as my own. Ohohohoho!" Despite how he sounded just a moment ago, E. Gadd has now reverted back to his more cheerful personality. "Wait professor, from the way you were talking just a moment ago it sounds like Cackletta reading the tablet is a bad thing. How so? I thought it only spoke of the Overlord's final battle and the location of the one destined to take his powers?" Mario is quick to point out. "Did you forget already? The tablet also details the exact locations of the seven temples where the Overlord put the stones that contained each of his elemental powers into."

Upon hearing the number, Alex lifts his fists up near his face and begins to count off the elements he knew one by one while lifting his head up to stare at the ceiling while he mumbles the element's names. As he does this, both Mario and E. Gadd spend a little time discussing something, their voices unheard by the boy thank to how deep in thought he is. Once they are done, the plumber turns around and notices Alex looking down at his hands with six fingers held up. "What are you doing there Alex?" He asks. "Just having a hard time figuring out what the seventh element is...So far I got Fire, Ice, Water, Earth, Lightning, and Sky...What could that last one possibly be?" "Grass, or rather, Plants in general." E. Gadd quickly responds.

"I thought about that..." Alex says with his arms crossed in front of his chest. "But I had assumed that it would've fallen under the same category as the Earth element...I guess it just refers to rocks and the like in that case. Though I must admit, that was a rather swift response professor." "The reason I was able to answer your question as easily as I did was because I got the first half of the green text translated already..." E. Gadd grabs the tablet with both hands and after a small struggle he lifts it up and places it down below his feet, the heavy object resting flat against the bars on his seat as he bends forward and points at the words he just mentioned. Mario kneels down and takes a look at it, but finds that he is unable to recognize the language.

"What is this supposed to a-be?" Mario asks as he lifts his head up to look at the professor, who nudges his glasses with his free hand before lifting the tablet back onto the table with all his might. The weight of the object slamming down onto the surface almost threatens to snap the furniture's legs in half. "They are ancient Beanbean runes, from a time long before the actual Kingdom was established. I must say that I am in a bit of a pickle in regards to translating this, so it may take me a good fifteen..thirty more minutes before I'm done. In the meantime though, how about you take Alex around for a tour of the town? Get him as used to the populace as you can so he doesn't suffer from any possible culture shock later on..."

"Hmm, I suppose I should..." As he talks, something suddenly dawned on the italian plumber. "Hey wait a second!" He says, quickly turning around and giving Alex a funny glare while raising one hand and wagging his pointer finger at him, which causes the boy to flinch in surprise. "You think I would forget about you flying when we battled Cackletta, hmmm?" "Come again?" E. Gadd lifts his head up and turns his chair around. "What is this about the boy being able to fly?" He says out of interest towards the subject. "Yeah, Alex can fly without the use of a Red Star, Tanooki Suit, Cape Feather, or any sort of power-up for that matter." Mario responds to the professor's inquiry. "Hmm..." E. Gadd taps the side of his glasses, causing the lenses to turn black and grant him X-ray vision.

"Interesting, you don't have any machinery on you...So tell me Alex." E. Gadd shifts his glasses back to their normal state with another tap. "How are you able to fly, per say?" "Hehehe..." As the boy chuckles he closes his eyelids so the professor can't read too deep into his smiling expression as he prepares to speak. "Would you believe me if I told you that I found a scroll hidden in a cave surrounded by seven glowing balls that taught me how to do it?" "Considering I don't know anything about how things work on Earth, then yes, I do believe you." The stubby old man jumps off of his chair and starts to wander about the lab with his arms folded behind his back. "If scrolls allow one to fly, then who am I to question it? After all, I live in a world where hills have eyes and Mushrooms can either heal you or make you grow, and yet I haven't bothered to question any of it...Anyways, I'm gonna get to work on the translation...Enjoy your tour around town, alright?" With his wish of good faith, Mario and his new companion Alex head off up the stairs.

However, before they reach the top, the red and blue garbed plumber has a couple of things to ask. "So would it be possible for you to teach me that flying technique of yours?" "Hmm...Probably not. To be honest, it was a couple of years ago, and I didn't take the scroll back with me, so I've forgotten how I learned it...Well, partially anyways. The full details might pop back into my head later, but besides, do you really need to learn such a thing when you got so many other methods of traversing the air?" "A fair point." With Mario dropping the conversation with a shrug of the shoulders, the two of them step out of the dim stairway area and enter the bright and rejuvenated Toad Town...Whose damages have already been repaired by the mushroom headed citizens.

Awestruck by such a quick reconstruction job, Alex struggles to say even a single word as he jaw stands dropped with one finger shaking as it has been raised into the air. "How the..." Is all he can bring himself to say before Mario speaks up. "Surprised?" As he tilts his hat forward by grabbing onto the front of it, Alex shakes his head and returns to his normal posture. "Well yeah, I mean a couple of houses did get broken after all..." "Fair point, but the townsfolk are so used to Bowser coming in with his Doomships and wreaking havoc on the populace and buildings that everyone has made sure that there are enough construction workers around to quickly repair whatever damages may eventually occur in town." "Huh, that's some pretty good thinking there." After the two of them have finished their exchange of words, they head on over to the closest Item Shop, which unlike most of the buildings around there actually looks like a normal kind of structure with a curved "Item Shop" tell-tale sign above the door instead of the typical Mushroom roofed houses.

Upon entering through the door, they are greeted by the owner of this humble store, a green capped Toad with a split mustache and a billboard held between his right arm and the rest of his body which he uses to keep track of his inventory every day. "Ah, greetings Mario." The Toad says with a thin British accent. "And who is your new friend there?" He nudges his head towards Alex, who Mario gestures towards with a swing of his left arm. "My name is Alex Whiter. A pleasure to meet you." The boy says, holding his hands against his kneecaps and tilting his head forward for a moment before lifting it back up. "He is from Earth." Mario adds on to his friend's previous statement. "You mean like you and Luigi are?" The shopkeeper points out while rubbing his chin out of curiosity. "Yeah, kind of like us." The plumber answers with a nod of his head. "Well, make yourself welcome here Alex. As you can see I have everything from Mushrooms to Stone Caps to Dizzy Dials...Though I can see that you are already taking an interest in that last one."

Indeed, for at the moment Alex can be seen bending over next to a row of light-blue two-dimensional swirls with his eyelids squinted to get a better look at them. "So how do you work these exactly?" He asks, his interest piqued. "That's easy to answer. To use a Dizzy Dial, one must raise it above their head with one hand and gently rub the left side down to the bottom to get it to start spinning in mid-air. Anyone within a visible 2-yard range will become dizzy for a short period of time, unless their minds are resistant to such a thing. Even so, early on in a quest this item can prove to be an invaluable asset." With the shopkeeper's helpful explanation, the boy claps his hands together and lifts himself up to turn around and look at Mario. "Any chance that we can buy one of these Dials, Mario?" He asks.

"Sure thing Alex. In fact, I was gonna pick up a Maple Syrup, Fire Flower, and POW Block anyways, so spending a couple more coins on that wouldn't be too much of a problem." Turning to the shopkeeper, Mario extends his right arm and opens the hand to reveal twenty golden coins. "Will this cover my order?" He asks. The Toad closes his eyelids and shakes his head back and forth while holding one hand up to reject the plumber's money. "No need to pay this time, take what you want free of charge. It's the least I can do for you after the many, many times you have saved our fair Kingdom." Thankful for the shopkeeper's generosity, Mario puts his money back into his overalls and with the help of Alex grabs one of each item, at the same time discretely putting ten coins on the counter as he turns around from picking up the POW Block. After thanking the Toad for his help, the two heroes leave the store and head on to their next destination.

After passing through the big blue gate with a yellow star on the front in the northern side of town, Mario and Alex come upon a large multi-tiered castle with a red tiled roof and a mosaic of a certain pink-dressed Princess on the front. "Whoa..." The boy stands still in awe and takes a moment to take in the wonderful architecture looming in front of him as Mario continues on ahead a bit before realizing that his friend has stopped, at which point he turns his head around to see the giddy smile that Alex has on his face as his body is trembling in anticipation. "You going to be ok?" The plumber asks with one of his eyebrows raised. "Hehehe...It's funny. This is the type of thing that you'd think you'd only get to experience in your dreams...To actually see something like this in its full glory, I got to admit, its quite overwhelming." After he has had his fill of the sights, Alex tightly clenches his fists to pull himself together and continue onward alongside Mario.

"I'm good now, don't worry about it." The boy assures the plumber, who nods his head to agree with that statement. Once at the small stone bridge to the castle, Mario explains to the two spear-wielding Toad guards about his business in being there, and they gladly move out of the way to allow the "Famed Mario and friend" to pass through the front door. Upon going inside, the plumber has to try his hardest to prevent Alex from wandering off to the other rooms in the building, at least until they reach the throne room at the very end of the second floor hallway, that is. "I can't even take a peak at the kitchen?" The boy says in a disappointed tone as he keeps his arms folded behind his head. "Not without the Princess' permission, sorry to say." Mario says, providing the shortest explanation he possibly can for the time being.

"Speaking of which, I just thought of something. Where the heck is Luigi?" Alex asks. "What brought that question up?" The plumber swiftly responds, giving a bit of chuckle at the end because of how sudden the question was. "Well usually when you go on adventures like these your brother either tags along or tries to avoid being involved until he is forced into the situation, or he is busy doing his own thing, like when the whole Waffle Kingdom thing happened." "Well, right now my bro is with Daisy in Sarassaland. I doubt he'll ever catch wind of me doing this quest until its all said and done. Still though, I do see your point." Mario answers. "Well, here we are." He then says, motioning to both Toad guards to lower their spears as they stand a foot away from the doors.

Once they are down, the two heroes walk through the star marked oak doors to enter the Princess' Throne Room, a massive room in the center of the castle with pillars on the sides keeping the ceiling supported while the blue tapestries are placed beside them. There are six stained glass windows on the sides with the same appearance as the one on the front of the castle, that speaking of which can currently be seen from the opposite side on the wall above the doorway, the sun's light being cast through it and in turn projecting its image down onto Alex and Mario. At the very end of the room on a royal red throne sits the Kingdom's ruler, the appropriately pink dress wearing blond named Peach. By her side, as usual, is her worrisome aide Toadsworth, an elderly Toad with a brown cap, regal outfit, and a mushroom topped cane that he uses to carry himself around from place to place.

As both heroes approach her royalness, she gets up off the seat of her throne and with her hands held in front of her dress she walks forward to greet the two of them. Once they have met at the center of the royal carpet, Peach moves her arms out to the side of her body and both her and Mario nod their heads once to greet each other, while Alex gets on one knee and crosses his left arm in front of his chest to pay his respects to this figure of royalty. Seeing him doing this from the corner of her eye, Peach places the tip of her right fingers against her mouth and lets out a quiet "Teehee" as she turns to look at him. "This a new friend of yours Mario?" She asks in a delicate tone of voice. Humming out his response, the plumber does two nods before also turning to look at the boy. "Alex, its alright, you don't need to act so formal."

"Oh?" Alex's eyelids thrust open and he stands back on his feet. He has a hard time looking directly at the Princess due to how embarrassed he feels around her, though that's only a direct result of how pretty he finds her to be. Even so, he tries to conduct himself in a manner suitable for this moment. "But yes, I am an acquaintance of Mario's. My name is Alex Whiter, and I'm from Earth." He says. "Oh, like Mario is?" Peach says out of interest. "So what brings you to our lovely planet anyways?" So for the next couple of minutes Alex and Mario talk about the events that brought the two of them to this point in time, as the Princess stands still and listens attentively to what they have to say. When they are done, she nods her head once to confirm that she understands everything.

"Well, I'm glad you are accommodating to the planet so far. Though be warned, if you are going on an adventure with Mario, you are certainly going to get some excitement out of it. But you can definitely trust him to have your back should you get into trouble. I should know, he has saved me from being kidnapped-" "About 16 times." All three of them say at the exact same time, which causes Peach to pause and blink a few times before continuing with what she was saying. "Either way, I wish you both the best of luck on your quest." After thanking her for her time, both Alex and Mario turn around and give the Princess a wave of the hand as they leave. But before they've even moved two feet away, the plumber remembers something important he forgot to give Peach. "I'll catch you outside the castle Alex, there is something I forgot to do." Though he stops in place, the boy only turns his head to the left and gives a nod as he continues to walk away.

Once he has left the area, Mario turns around and walks over to the Princess, drawing a Fire Flower from his left pocket and handing it over to her. "You asked me to get one of these, correct?" "Oh! Wonderful, you remembered! Now I'll be able to make those Burning Deviled Eggs for the upcoming Party, thank you so much Mario." Kneeling forward and giving her hero a kiss on the nose, Peach takes the Fire Flower out of his hands and keeps holding onto it until she'll be able to put it with the rest of her ingredients in the kitchen later. With the plumber's cheeks becoming a light shade of red, he gives the Princess a smile. "Not a problem Peach, least I can do." "It always is, isn't it? ...So Cackletta is back, huh?" "...Mm-hmm." Sensing the distress in Peach's voice, Mario stays quiet for but a moment before nodding in a happy manner.

"Its ok, no matter how she came or whatever her plan may be, I'll stop her just like me and Luigi did before." With one hop and a thumbs up in front of his chest, the plumber has successfully managed to break the Princess' frown and get her to let out a delighted chuckle. "Alright Mario, I know you'll be able to triumph against that witch. Now, I don't want to hold you up any further, so I'll see you later." After truly saying goodbye this time around, Mario departs from the castle. After he has left the throne room though, Peach turns around and walks back over to where Toadsworth is currently standing. Despite his age the old bean still overheard most of their conversation, and he tilts his head in confusion. "The Elemental Overlord? The seven temples? By golly, does Master Mario not realize what he is getting involved with here?" The Princess says nothing as she passes by her aide and sits down on her throne, her mind filled with nothing but concern for her hero as she senses that troubled times will soon be approaching...

Near the stone fountain right outside the castle, Alex can be seen staring at it as the plumber walks over to him. "Hey kid, I gotta fix the piping for this today, you mind moving off to the side so I can work?" After turning his head towards the Toad with the tool belt and a grimy appearance, the boy steps back a few feet to let him do his thing. Once he has moved, Mario comes over to him and looks over at the nearby gate to see a random Toad running over to them. Upon arriving at his destination, the shroomhead waves his arms back and forth with a great deal of urgency. "Mario Mario Mario! Professor E. Gadd wanted me to find you!" "What is it Toad?" Mario asks. "He said to tell you 'You know, I still had to give you my latest hand held communication device before you left.' or something to that extent. Oh, and he also told me to tell you to get back to the lab, something about stones and what-not. That's all, I'll catch you around, tell Luigi I said hi!" As the Toad turns around, Alex holds his hand out for he has something to ask. "Wait a second! Are you THE Toad?" The Toad stops in place for a moment as the wind gently blows on by, before he then turns his head to the left and says "Yes, yes I am..." In an over-the-top cool accent as he walks off into the distance. Not really having anything to say in the face of Toad's cheesiness, both heroes head on their way back to E. Gadd's lab...

_Next Chapter: Into the Forest! Welcome, Driad!_


	4. Chapter 4: Guardian of the Leaves

**Chapter 4: Guardian of the Leaves**

After a rather brief stroll through the town, Mario and Alex arrive back at the Professor's laboratory, where they find the old man looking at a map of the Kingdom on his wide computer screen and typing up something onto a word document until he hears the footsteps of the two heroes, at which point he stops what he is doing and turns his chair around to face them. "Well,its about timeyou got back. For a moment there I thought you would've gotten so caught up in exploring that Toad never would've been able to find you. Either way, I have something to give to you." Getting out of his chair, E. Gadd has in his left hand a round red electronic device with a piece on the top shaped like his hair and a blue screen covering the center of it. As he approaches the two heroes, he remembers something important he forgot to ask.

"Oh my, where are my manners? " He says in an apologetic tone. "Did you enjoy the tour of our fair town Alex?" "Admittedly, yes. I ESPECIALLY enjoyed seeing the castle up close and personal. Honestly, the people on Earth have managed to construct some very beautiful pieces of architecture, but none of them really display such a vibrant array of colors like Peach's did. But really, that and the Item Shop were the only two places I got a chance to visit." "Oh, you stopped by the shop? Did you find anything to your liking?" E. Gadd asks. "Just a Dizzy Dial. Mario bought a couple of other things for the upcoming journey, so that's always good." "I see, I see...Ohohohoho. Well, so long as you enjoyed yourself. By the way Mario, since you obviously went to the castle, how is the Princess faring these days? Ever since I moved my lab here, I haven't had a chance to visit her."

Having kept quiet all that time so the other two could have a chance to converse, Mario turns to look at the Professor upon hearing his name and updates him on how Peach has been doing over the last couple of months, E. Gadd nodding all the way to show that he understands everything being said to him. "Well, glad to hear that she is keeping well...Oh yeah, that's right, I need to give you this now." With his somewhat faulty memory causing him to draw a blank for a moment, once remembered the Professor holds his right hand out with the device balancing on his palm. "This is my newest creation, a portable device that allows you to play music, pull up a map, communicate with others, do games, keep track of your inventory, and on the off-chance that you are feeling deep, you can write poetry on it too. I call it...The iGadd!"

As Mario takes the device from the wrinkly old man's hand, Alex places his left fist against his lips and closes his eyes as he chuckles at the familiar sounding name for the device. "Something funny on your mind Alex?" Mario asks, his eyes tilted to the right as he holds the iGadd up to his face. "Oh nothing. Its just that if you tried to sell this device on Earth, you'd definitely be hit with a lawsuit." "Oh? Someone already made something like this? Well darn, and here I thought I was being original..." Distraught by the fact that his idea had already been used by someone else, E. Gadd takes his mind off the subject by telling Mario that he should take a quick look at the map. Complying to that request, the plumber follows the professor's instructions to the letter by touching the screen and moving his fingers over to the 3-D globe, which instantly causes a zoom-in of a forest that lies just north of Toad Town to pop up, with a blinking green dot deep within it indicating the apparent location of the first temple, as the Professor is quick to point out.

"What is this place?" Mario asks with his head lifted up to look right at E. Gadd's own eyes as he waits patiently for an answer. "Its not surprising that you don't recognize it. Only a few select people who have ever dared to trek through the Osagi Woods have actually managed to leave it alive. The place was also commonly nicknamed the 'Forever Forest' in the past before the Boos trademarked it for their own forest. Even so, its not like the name doesn't still hold any water. You could walk for months on end and still never find a ray of light to guide you out." From the way the Professor describes the place, its no wonder that Alex finds himself feeling a bit concerned. "Umm...And you expect us to walk through it without any guidance? I know Mario has dealt with mazes in the past, but none of them have ever been given a legend to them like the one you are referring to." Alex says while nervously wiggling his pointer finger near the left side of his head and scrunching his forehead slightly.

"Ohohohoho, trust me when I say this, I would never send you somewhere without at least a hint on what to do. Luckily for you both, the tablet also gave a hint as to how to traverse the place. _'From within the thicket of trees you'll see petals of blue, listen to what they have to say and the path shall be held true.'_ " "Petals of blue..." Having paid the most attention to the hint that E. Gadd translated from the text, Mario rubs his chin in thought for a moment to make sure he has it all memorized, and upon doing so he moves his arms down to the sides of his body and does one nod of his head. "Got it." He says to finish his previous sentence. "So hang on a moment..." Alex says as he takes the iGadd out of the plumbers grasp and takes a nice long look at it and squints his eyes to look at the tiny text on the upper left corner of the dot. With it appearing as a blur to him, the boy lifts his head up to to ask the professor about it, at the same time adjusting his vision back to normal with a couple blinks of the eyelids.

"What does it say on here?" Holding the device out in front of his body with all five fingers wrapped around the sides, the professor has to give his glasses a slight nudge in order to better see it. "Ah, that's the name of the first location, the Nature Castle. If you are having a hard time seeing it, I'll make certain to increase the font size for the later names." "Alright, that would be nice." With his mission accomplished, Alex hands the device back to Mario and formally apologizes to him for yanking the device out like he did, to which the hero is quick to forgive him for, stating that its no big deal before tucking the iGadd into one of his overalls pockets. "Well, I guess we shall be off then. Don't want to waste any time now do we?" With Mario bringing up a good point, Alex nods his head in agreement, and the two of them depart from the lab after saying their goodbyes and thanks to E. Gadd.

Once they've both climbed the stairway back into the town, the plumber pulls out the device quickly and heads back to the main menu with a push of a the onscreen "Back" button. There, he scans everything over to checks all the options, and is visibly disappointed to find that there is no G.P.S. function on here. "Hmm, so once we go deep into the woods we won't be able to get out unless we follow the hint E. Gadd gave us to find our way back." "We won't get lost then in that case, right?" Alex responds with his arms held behind his head, which is turned to face Mario as he puts the iGadd away. "Of course." Gliding his right hand across the bottom of his nose, the plumber curls it into a fist and pops his thumb up. "Now, lets a-go!" With his signature catchphrase now uttered, the two heroes head out across the northern part of town until they've arrived in front of Peach's Castle once more. This time around though, they walk across the bridge to the right so they can better get around the castle and reach the plethora of trees lurking behind it, A.K.A., the entrance to the Osagi Woods.

It takes five minutes for the two of them to move across the grasslands separating the two areas, but once they reach their destination they are able to get a better, up close and personal look at the two-story high wooden plants. Most of them are covered with crisp red and gold-brown colored leaves, but there a few cherry blossom trees here and there along with some blue rose filled bushes on the ground to add a little variety to the scenery. With the sunlight peaking gently through the cracks between the leaves, Alex and Mario both feel a sense of serenity as they actually enter the woods themselves. "No wonder people get lost in here. If I lived my entire life surrounded by an environment this enchanting, why would I ever have any motivation to leave?" "While I agree with what you are saying, we still have to be on our guard." Mario says as he moves over to the bushes and kneels down to examine them.

"Well duh, now that we've started this adventure I know we are going to encounter enemies both new and old. But for some reason, that only fills me with anticipation. Speaking of which, why are you checking those bushes out?" Alex asks with his head tilted slightly to the right and his eyes filled with confusion. "Just following up on E. Gadd's hint. But I don't think it was referring to these bushes..." As Mario gets back up, he turns his head around and sees that these particular bushes only exist in this part of the forest, with no others being visible for yards on end. "So we should try looking for another type of flower is what you are getting at, correct?" The boy asks. "Right." The plumber says as he turns his head to the right to glance over at Alex.

But before they can before an investigation of the immediate area, the two heroes hear a faint ruffling sound coming from some normal looking bushes nearby. As they turn to look at it, they both sense that they are being watched. Being the first to want to check the bush out, Mario extends his left arm out while putting his right pointer finger to his lips and going "Shhh..." before he begins to gently tiptoe over to the bush to see just who might be spying on them. As he dips his hands into the leaves and begins to push them aside, something jumps out through the hole he just made and knocks Mario to the ground with a sharp leaf pointed at his neck. The creature is revealed to be a Crayzee Dayzee that's roughly as tall the plumber, with a body made entirely out of vines, and blue petals surrounding its yellow head with beady black eyes glaring down at his enemy as a scowl is marked across his face.

"Who are you and why have you come to this forest? Answer quickly or I'll remove that pudgy head of yours from your shoulders!" As the flower speaks in a loud, brash tone of voice, Alex runs forward and jumps into the air to kick him in the face, sending him flying back into the bush that he came out of and giving Mario enough time to get back on his feet. "What the heck was that?" The boy blurts out with his heart racing as he lands on the ground. "That was a Crayzee Dayzee...I think." The plumber responds while scratching the top of his hat with his left fingers. "Its body structure was different, that's for certain. Well, I suppose this only goes with the whole 'Going to encounter new enemies' thing you had brought up. Good thing you got him before he managed to end me."

Underestimating the strength of their opponent, the two heroes are forced into their battle stances when the Crayzee Dayzee leaps out of the bush with his leaf blade brandished out at them. "Do you value your lives invaders? Then thou must be wary to avoid cockiness in the face of your enemy, for in the span of two-thousand years have nary a warrior succeeded in bringing harm to ye woods!" With the warrior now lapsing into an over-the-top medieval accent, Alex can't help but chuckle. "Hehehe, you might be trying a bit too hard there little guy. Besides, I don't think you used 'Ye' correctly." For a moment, the flower lowers his weapon and leans the back of his left vine arm against his chin. "Really? I didn't think anyone would recognize the accent, since the times of its use have long since passed. I mean, I just wanted to try something new for o-Hey wait a minute, what am I doing conversing with the enemy? On guard fiends!"

After calmly speaking to the two heroes for one sentence, the flower lifts his weapon back up and leaps right at them. With one cut through the air, he succeeds at clipping off a few hairs on Mario's mustache as the plumber pulls back to avoid the attack. Once the Crayzee Dayzee has landed on the ground, Mario leans back and places his hands on the ground for support as he spins himself to try and kick his foe. But the warrior plants his blade in the ground to block both of the plumber's feet, though this leaves him vulnerable to a right hook across the jaw by Alex. Without any bones in its face to break though, the attack doesn't really have a lasting impact on the flower as he adjusts his head back to its normal position and back flips off the ground to avoid a fireball flung from Mario's right hand.

While in the air, the flower thrusts its left vine arm out and wraps it around Alex's gut, extended some thorns out to make sure his limb stays attached to the boy's body. Not wanting to have them puncture his skin in fear of poison being on the tips, the boy has no choice but to remain motionless as Mario rushes in to fight the Crayzee Dayzee in close combat once it lands on the ground. Thinking that the flower's sword is probably delicate considering what its made out of, the plumber throws all of his strength into his right fist as he thrusts it out in front of his face. Catching him coming at him from the corner of his eyes, the flower raises his weapon just like Mario predicted that he would. However, once his knuckles make contact with the dull side of the blade, the plumber is surprised to find that he is unable to even crack it.

"Hmm?" Mario says with a raised eyebrow. "Impressed? ...No wait, I don't want to hear any compliments from the enemy!" "Why do you think that we are your enemies?" The plumber asks in a calm tone of voice as he lets up on his punch and stands completely still. The flower warrior puts the tip of his sword back near his neck and is just about ready to make him pay for his withdrawal when he sees a good point being brought up by the "invaders" question. Scrunching his face up all serious-like and twisting his head to the left, the flower curls his lower lip as he tries to come up with the next thing to say. "Very well then, answer me honestly then...Why ARE you here?" Without flinching and without any hesitation, Mario comes up with an answer once he takes a quick look at the warrior's petals "Me and my friend here are going through these woods to search for the Nature Castle. We were given a hint by a friend of ours that we'd be able to find our way there if we listened to someone with blue petals on them. I'm sorry if you think that we are intruding, but we honestly have no intention of harming the forest."

Though he is listening in to what the plumber has to say, the flower is mainly paying attention to his associate, making sure that his muscles never tense up from nervousness, for that would alert him that the story being spoken to him is nothing more than a lie. After a few seconds of complete silence, the Crayzee Dayzee gently retracts his right vine from around Alex and with a flick of the wrist the leaf on his other arm magically disappears. Afterwards, he bows his head and looks at the two heroes with a small grin on his face. "Forgive me for my rashness. I've been guarding the area from evildoers for two millennium, so its not like I expected to meet any of you heroic types around here." "Wait a moment...Two-thousand years?" Alex says after breathing a heavy sigh of relief and walking back to Mario's side. "If you don't mind me asking, just who or what are you?"

"I can gladly answer that. My name is Driadius Carnation Aloevera Liondande the First. But obviously that will be hard to remember, so you can just call me Driad. I'm the guardian of the Nature Castle, which by extension means the rest of the forest as well, and I'm assuming since you've seen the tablet to know of its existence in the first place I can tell you this one other detail. I was created by the very Elemental Overlord himself." Greatly surprised by the flower's revelation, Mario and Alex lean forward with their eyes wide open and their jaws dropped as low as physically possible to greater emphasize the shock they are experiencing. "Whoa...So that means you know everything there is to know about the seven temples. That's incredible!" The boy says, with a grin becoming all the more obvious as the seconds pass on by.

"Nope! Sorry to ruin your mood there...Umm, darn it, I don't know either of your guys' names yet." Regaining their composure rather quickly, Mario and Alex both raise themselves back up and shake their heads rapidly before nervously rubbing the back of their heads. "Slipped our minds, what with you doing most of the talking and all. My name is Alex Whiter." "And I shouldn't have to introduce myself, you should have heard of me before." As Mario does a humble cough with his fist in front of his mouth, Driad tilts his head and raises his eyes up as he tries to think about who this mysterious plumber may be. In an instant, he comes up with an answer. "Never heard of you before in my life." The response of which causes both Mario and Alex to fall flat on their faces with their arms outstretched. "Umm...I don't think that is good for your health..." Driad says in an overly innocent tone of voice.

After picking themselves up off the ground, Mario spends the next six minutes explaining about just who he is and what he does in the Mushroom Kingdom. Once all is said and done, Driad crosses his arms in front of his chest and mumbles to himself as he takes all that info in. "...Nope, sorry, still don't know you. And just what is a Bowser? Is it some type of giant flaming dog?" Just plain giving up on trying to explain things to this unknowing flower, Mario decides to switch back to the subject of Driad's role in being the so-called guardian of the Nature Castle. "Ok ok, so if you don't know about the other temples, then how far does your knowledge extend out to?" "Well, I know how to get to the Nature Castle and move through it to get to the stone, but my use to you extends far beyond just being a tour guide. I'm a capable enough fighter, having been at it since long before either of you've been born. Plus, the Overlord told me before he left here that it is my solemn duty to help people like you on your journey to gather the seven Elemental Stones. Now, you don't have to accept my help if you don't want to, I won't be insulted if you say no."

As Driad folds his arms behind his back and patiently whistles to himself, Mario and Alex go off to the side to think about his offer. "What do you say Mario? Its your judgment call on this one, seeing as you are the leader and what-not." The boy is the first to whisper. The plumber folds his arms underneath his chin and tilts his head as he begins to think about any possible consequences of letting Driad join up with them. On one hand, the flower's heart does seem to be in the right place, and if he really was a villain he already had two opportunities to kill the both of them that he never took. On the second hand though, he did seem a bit rash, which could prove to be problematic should they encounter an enemy too powerful for them to handle. But at the end of his train of thought, Mario can only think of one possible conclusion.

As he turns himself around and walks over to the flower, he extends one hand out and says "We'd be glad to have you come with us Driad." in the friendliest tone that he can muster. "Awesome!" The Crayzee Dayzee excitedly blurts as he claps his hands out in front of him before taking his right one and enthusiastically shaking Mario's hand. When Alex walks over to him, they do the same handshake. "You won't regret this, I can promise you that. By the way, I have to ask Mario...Why were you looking at the Imitation Roses? Don't you know that they are poisonous?" Driad's sudden comment causes the plumber to go into a panic, as he waves his arms frantically beside him and gets horrible flashbacks to the time he was inflicted with Bean Fever. "...You do realize I'm joking, right?" The flower quickly points out upon worrying about the way his new friend was acting. This causes Mario to stop and breathe a sigh of relief. "But seriously, be careful. You can't just look all willy nilly at these plants. That being said, we should probably get moving so we are done before the daylight runs out. Once it becomes nighttime, even I can't ensure that we will be able to find our way out." With that rather ominous comment, the three heroes turn towards the deeper part of the forest and begin their trek towards the Nature Castle.

_Next Time: More Than One Guardian?_


	5. Chapter 5: The Ghoul of the Garden

**Chapter 5: The Ghoul of the Garden**

By following Driad's helpful directions, the heroes eventually find themselves within the deeper part of the woods, and the sunlight begins to vanish as the leaves become both darker and thicker in shape. At the same time, Mario starts to see large claw marks on the twisted, thorny roots coming out of the ground around them. "...Say, Driad?" The plumber says to get his attention, to which he stops in place and turns around to answer him, almost causing Alex to run into him at the same time. "Yes?" The flower responds. "What kind of beasts inhabit this forest anyways?" "Boos-" "Oh, well that's not so bad." Alex is quick to point out before his new friend has even finished, which Driad reacts to by glaring at him from over his left shoulder. Once his head turns back around, he adds on by saying "-and Wolves." Completely unconcerned by what was just said, Mario keeps a calm demeanor as he rubs the bottom of his chin and gives that info some thought.

Understandably though, Alex is a bit unhinged by that. "Wolves? Are you kidding? That is definitely a bit too high level for this point in time! I'm not doubting our own strengths at all, mind you, but for us to try and beat a vicious pack of creatures such as them? That's ludicrous!" "Oh, I wouldn't worry about it at all Alex." Driad says, turning himself around to face the boy with an assuring smile on his face. "For as long as I can remember, every last wolf in this forest has respected me. So long as you guys stick around me, you won't get attacked." "Huh, well..." After hearing that, Alex wipes every last drop of sweat from his forehead with a brush of his left hand. "That's a relief..." He says from under his breath.

"How come the wolves respect you Driad?" Mario inquires. "Dunno." The flower dryly states with a shrug of his shoulders. "If I had to take a guess though, its probably because of my longevity." "Fair enough point." The plumber retorts. "See, this is why its a good thing I came across you guys...Or would that be the other way around?" Shifting from a raise of his right hand to placing it underneath his chin and pondering what he just brought up for a moment before catching himself and returning to talking about his importance. "Anyways...You see, its not that this forest is particularly hard to navigate. No, its really easy to do so so long as you avoid the sun deprived parts. What really gets people lost is when the wolves catch a whiff of their scents and begin to chase them into the darker parts that the problem arises. Either the person gets eaten alive or by the time they lose the beasts because I'm in the area, they end up never finding their way out because they'll have gone in too deep. I may not have wandered into your "Toad Town" at all, but I do remember in the past that the villagers sent criminals into this forest as a form of execution. Usually with a promise that if they could make it to the other side they would be allowed to go free. To my best of knowledge not a single one sent here ever succeeded for the reasons I just brought to your attention."

"That's...HORRIBLE." With Alex expressing his utter disgust at what Driad just said, his body shudders as he turns his head around and notices a pair of glowing yellow eyes staring at him through the shadows. "Is one of them looking at you Alex?" Driad asks upon noticing his friend's current posture. "Yeah..." The boy responds with his muscles tightened out of fear. "Hang on, it probably doesn't see me because you are in the way." As he speaks the flower walks around Alex until he is front of him, and Mario follows him while pulling on the lip of his left glove on the off chance that he has to end up fighting. "Wait a second..." As Driad leans his head out slightly, he sees a the faint glow of the inside of the creature's mouth and with only two teeth being clearly visible to him he comes to the following conclusion. "...That's not wolf. In fact, its something else entirely."

"So can I attack it?" Mario asks with his head tilted towards the flower. "I'd advise against it, since we don't know what we are up against." Despite the appearance of a different enemy than expected, Alex relaxes himself and lets a light breath out as he presses his left hand against his chest and leans forward a bit. "Well, so long as it isn't a blood thristy monster, then I don't really care!" Having gotten himself back together, the boy leaps over Driad and flies at the shadows with his left foot held out in front of his body. Just before he can hit the mysterious observer though, it lets out a ruffled sounding cackle and slinks back, causing Alex to slam the sole of his shoe into the side of a tree that just so happened to be there. Without any of his bones broken, the boy kicks himself off of the wood and flips himself around so he is standing on the ground once more. Puzzled by whatever the heck just happened, Alex turns around and walks back over to the other two heroes with his eyelids slanted upwards.

"O...kay?" Is all he can bring himself to say. "Hmmm...That was certainly a Boo that was watching us just now." Mario quickly realizes as he aims one of his pointer fingers at the thicket of trees in front of them. "Worse than that, I think that was the outside guardian of the Nature Castle." Driad says with a serious look on his face. "Come again? Outside guardian?" Snapping out of his confusion, both Alex and Mario take note of the what just said. "Yes, the Outside Guardians. I don't know what any of them look like, but I do remember that there is one guarding the entrance to every temple. Makes sense that one of them is making their presence known to us now, seeing as we aren't that far away from the Nature Castle at this point." "And this one just so happens to have the appearance of a creature native to this world?" Mario asks. "I..I guess so." Noticing the hesitation in Driad's voice along with the sudden drooping of his arms, the plumber decides to push the flower slightly in regards to the guardians.

"Driad, I don't think you are telling us the full story here, are you?" He says with one eyebrow raised. "I've already told you everything I know. If you don't believe me though..." The flower turns himself towards Mario and looks him straight in the eyes. "Look into my eyes and see for yourself if I'm telling the truth." Seeing as he is not exactly an expert at analyzing whether someone is lying or not via looking at their eyes, the plumber figures that if the flower is willing to go that far, then he must be being honest. "No...That won't be necessary. Sorry for having any doubts." Mario says with a grin and a nod, to which the flower returns with a cheeky grin of his own. "Its ok, but I really do wish I knew more about the guardians myself, otherwise I could've said more about them." Driad says in an apologetic tone. "Hold up a moment now." Alex interrupts with one hand raised and another one pressed against his forehead.

"How are we going to beat this Boo when it actually decides to confront us?" "Well, since the usual method of 'Staring at it to keep it from moving' isn't going to work, I guess we are just going to have to fight it...Well, normally. Its not like I haven't ever had a chance to punch a Boo in the face before." At the end of his sentence, Mario has his arms held out in front of his body with his fingers wiggling about, only for him to fold his limbs back in front of his chest soon after. "True. Oh well, guess we better get moving. Besides, I'm starting to feel a bit uneasy, like a wolf really IS looking at us right now." "Alright then. Follow me..." After Driad acknowledges Alex's concerns, the heroes continue on their way. Not long after, they find that only pin sized rays of light are coming through the trees now. Luckily for them, the path is being lit by a few glowing tulip bulbs.

"So how exactly are these bulbs able to function in this environment?" Mario inquires. "Beats me. I don't explore this part of the woods very often, so I haven't been able to witness the process that they undergo in order to give off that luminescence." "Perhaps the Elemental Overlord had something to do with it?" Alex interjects. "That could be true, I wouldn't know...Hey, can you guys hold on for a moment?" All of a sudden, Driad runs over to mound of dirt with a lone rose resting on top of it. The flower gets on his knees and gently brushes the top of the mound with the tip of his right vine, then after laying both arms down against the top of his legs. "..." Closing his eyelids, the flower begins to reminisce. Mario and Alex give him a few seconds to himself before they walk over to see what is up. "An old friend of yours Driad?" The plumber asks.

"No. Its the grave site of one of those criminals I mentioned earlier." "You buried them?" Alex asks, a hint of surprise being heard in his voice. "Yes." "But why? They were bad people, don't you know that?" As Driad opens his eyes and stands back up, he looks at the nearby tree and responds to Mario's question with the following. "Maybe so, but that doesn't mean that they deserved the fate that they were dealt. Forcing one to suffer without hope before they die...I would never do that to anyone. At the very least, by burying them here I allowed them to, in a way, redeem themselves by having them give back to the forest...Anyways, lets move on!" Reverting back to his cheerful self faster than you could say "Corn Bread", the other two heroes merely shrug their shoulders at Driad's behavior and continue on their way.

"How much longer do you say it'll take for us to get there?" Alex inquires, the impatience in his voice being as clear as day. "Just a couple more minutes. If you are bored Alex, you could always indulge in the sights." "Its almost pitch black in here!" The boy angrily retorts to Driad's response. "Sorry..." The flower says as his body flinches slightly. Turning his head back around to face the way in front of him, Driad slightly raises his hands into the air and rolls his eyes around. "Just trying to be helpful here..." He then mumbles. "Mario, if I may ask." Alex says, trying to start a conversation with the plumber in order to cure his boredom. "Hmm?" The hero of the Mushroom Kingdom murmurs with his head turned towards the boy. "Do you have any plans to use your suits during this adventure? You know, Hammer, Tanooki, Fire Flower, etc.?"

"Depends on the situation I guess, but no, I don't really have a reason to use them. Why do you ask?"

"Well, its just that..." Alex swings his arm over his head, followed up by flinging it out in front of his body. "I was hoping to see how you use them first hand. Plus, I just wanted to see how prepared you were, that's all." "Well, that's fine and dandy Alex, but its not like power-ups are easy to come by. ESPECIALLY the Hammer and Tanooki suits. Those only exist in the seven lands of the Mushroom Kingdom, and the Hammer one in particular is the rarest of them all. I mean, its not like there is a tree that just drops these power-ups now is there?" "Yeah, just imagine...A tree that drops nothing but Tanooki leaves!" "And Bowser would have Kamek conjure up a storm to blow those leaves away so he could give them to his army and himself!" After thinking for a moment about the ridiculousness of that idea, both Mario and Alex burst into laughter, their arms flailing about as they try their hardest to contain themselves. Driad, having no clue about ANYTHING that they were just talking about, just stops and turns around, slanting his jaw slightly while his eyes look on in utter bewilderment.

"Al...right then? We made it guys, if you want to see for yourself." With their composure soon regained, the three heroes walk forward through the bushes and finally return to a more lighted area. In front of them is a the entrance to the Nature Castle, whose decaying stone walls have been covered with moss and vines, effectively concealing it from people who'd come into this area from the sides. The circular portion of ground in front of it is devoid of any grasses or flowers, and the trees surrounding it prevent anyone from looking at the temple in full. Cautiously walking forward, Driad stops in place once he catches something out of the corner of his on one of the trees to the left of him. "Huh?" Rushing over to the tree, he finds that the bark has been torn apart by what look to be a pair of wolf claws. Even more disturbing is the fact that there are traces of dried up blood on the edge of the marks, and after taking one step forward to examine it closer he ends up feeling a couple of bones rubbing up against the bottom of his foot.

"Could some of the wolves come here? That...No, that can't be...No one has ever managed to make it out here, they would've needed my help to do so...So how-" "Hey Driad, did you find something interesting over there?" Mario's sudden calling out to him causes the flower to nervously shuffle his foot around to bury the bones underneath a few fallen leaves. He then turns himself around and keeps his face as emotionless as possible so the plumber doesn't detect anything wrong with him. "Not at all, seems I was seeing things." He says as he joins back up with the two heroes and they continue on towards the entrance. "How odd. Shouldn't that 'Outside Guardian' be here to try and stop us?" Alex asks. "Perhaps he got lost trying to get back?" The plumber responds. "Could be, but I'd still be on guard just in case." Driad replies.

As they get closer and closer, the heroes start to tip-toe so they don't accidentally trigger a trap on the ground. But with their attention fully put into being cautious, they are unaware of the evil creeping up on them from within the confines of the temple. With them being only a few feet away, three gigantic Pirahna Plant heads lunge out at the heroes and force them to instinctively jump back to avoid being eaten. The veins on the plant's heads are throbbing, and as they continue to snarl their teeth ooze with acidic saliva. After a few more seconds, however, the creature's heads collapse into the vines from whence they came, and they in turn slink back into the dark passageway. The owner of these vines, the lime-green Boo that the heroes encountered earlier, floats out with his eyes closed and a ridiculously high-pitched laugh coming from its mouth. Wrapped around both its stubby hands are the vines it just used to scare her heroes with.

**Phantasm of the Flowers: Synth Spirit**

Wasting no time after his frightening introduction, the Boo becomes intangible and sinks into the ground, leaving behind an ethereal portal for a second in the process. After a few seconds, the heroes feel the ground rumbling beneath and each perform a back flip as the ghost flies out of the ground with five beanstalks trailing out of the ground behind him to create a wall that blocks the way to the temple. With his first job done, the ghost sinks down so the bottom of his body is nearly at ground level. He then spits a few seeds out of his mouth that plant themselves into the ground and grow into three miniature doppelgangers of himself, which then float themselves in a ring around the creature's body. After all the ghosts laugh at the same time, they become invisible and charge forward.

Unable to see their enemy, Alex and Driad jump into the air under the false assumption that the ghost planned on running through them. As it turns out though, the creature only moved a couple of inches, and anticipated the heroes reactions ahead of time. He then orders his little ones to send their vines out and grab Driad by the legs, while he himself does the same to Alex. Once they have been tightly wrapped around at the kneecaps, they use their strength to slam the two heroes back first against the ground. The cloud of dust that pops up afterward reveals to Mario the ghost's outline, and before his friends can get attacked he rushes forward and slams his fist right into its body. To his surprise though, the Boo has a rather gelatinous form, and it seems his attack has done little damage to it.

It did, however, cause the tiny Boos to turn their heads around and stop raising Driad, which gives the Crayzee Dayzee enough time to change his right arm into his leafy sword and cut both himself and Alex free. With their freedom secured, the boy flies forward and performs a drop kick on the Boo while he is still somewhat visible, only for his foot to sink slightly into the body until he decides to pull back and land next to Driad. "We can't harm him?" The flower points out as he turns his arm back to normal. "Seems not." Mario says as he tries two more punches with an equal amount of success as the last one. The Boos retaliate by creating thorns on their arms and begin spinning around to try and ram into the plumber.

Not surprisingly, their actions only end up making it easier for the heroes to see where its at, for the rotation of its body creates a ring underneath it thanks to the dirt flying up around it. Thus Mario jumps over the Boo and comes down hard onto its head. This time around he bounces high into the air with the creature acting as a trampoline. Turns out though that the plumber saw this coming, and as he grabs onto one of the nearby tree branches with one hand he turns his body sideways and shoots three fireballs from the palm of his left hand. The attacks hit the tiny Boos dead on, their flammable vines proving to be their downfall as they burn to cinders. Seeing the deaths of what he considered to be his offspring, the spirit is thrown into a fit of rage as he detracts his thorns and sinks back into the ground.

After three seconds he rises up underneath Mario with a massive Pirahna Plant head following him. The plumber leaps off and lands on the ground as the carnivorous creature chomps down on the stick he was just on and converts itself into soil when the ghost sees no further use for it. The Boo repeats the process and this time around targets the lone Driad, who jumps up and sends out a sharp leaf with a swing of his right arm that cleaves the Pirahna Plant in two down the center. After doing this, the flower notices that half of the Boo is currently visible, with a ray of sunlight peaking through the leaves behind the part of the ghost that can be seen. Before he can make note of this to his friends though, the spirit sprints towards him and bites down onto his chest, proceeding to then slam him down onto the ground and using the vines on his left arm to constrict the Crayzee Dayzee against it. It prepares to finish him off by jamming a jagged root through his head, when Alex runs towards him and spin kicks him right in the face with enough force that he is forced to let go of Driad as he is sent flying towards Mario, who punches the ghost in the back with his right hand and delivers a flame empowered uppercut to its gut with the other.

While the overall wearing Italian man does all he can to try and determine the ghost's weakness, Alex rips off a piece of bark from one of the trees and gets ready to jam the sharpest part into the vines wrapped around Driad, only for the flower to cut himself loose with his leaf sword just like he did earlier. He then gets on his feet and looks at the boy, who disappointingly tosses the bark off to the side and folds his arms in front of his chest. "You ok Driad?" He asks. "A little shooken up, but fine otherwise." The flower responds while the punctured parts of his chest heal up. "You can regenerate?" Alex says out of surprise towards his friend's ability. "So long as my head doesn't sustain too much damage, yeah." Driad states as he taps one of his vines against his forehead. They both then turn and look at Mario, who is continuing his assault without giving the ghost any chance to fight back.

"Mario seems to be fairing well, but shall we give him a hand?" Alex says in a rather casual tone. "No, we got to expose the creature's weakness...I figured it out." "Really now? What is it?" The boy asks. "This might sound crazy..." Alex scoffs at Driad's comment. "And everything in this world isn't already?" "...Anyways, I think the Boo has converted its texture and mass so it resembles that of a Chloroplasts'. By doing that, he has lowered his visibility and density to a such a level that it makes it very hard to hit him, and even if he were to get hit he couldn't possibly suffer any damage. However, because he has become what he has, the very act of being exposed to sunlight causes his water molecules to be split apart into hydrogen and oxygen atoms, where the hydrogen ones then combine with carbon dioxide in the air to make glucose, and in turn forces him to revert back to a more solid form so it can release it from its body."

Seeing as he isn't exactly the brightest one around, it takes a moment for Alex to understand everything just said to him. Then, in a moment of brilliance, he realizes something about Driad's info that fits in with the Boo's appearance. "So that's why it is colored the way he is! And here I thought it was because it was just going along with the theme of the temple its guarding." The flower agrees with a nod of the head, and then mentions one more thing. "That would also explain why he summoned those beanstalks before the battle began. It serves two purposes. One, it prevents us from getting in. And two, it prevents most of the sunlight from getting in, thus removing the one thing that makes him vulnerable." After taking things into consideration, the Crayzee Dayzee rubs the bottom of his chin as a smirk appears on his face. "For a speechless Boo, he certainly has thought things through."

With the info gathered, Alex puts his hands out beside his mouth and hollers out to Mario. "Hey Mario! You hear all that?" At that very moment, the plumber has the Boo held in the grasp of his two hands. He flings him against the ground and kicks his feet out rapidly to continuously bounce the creature against it while at the same time slowing his descent. The Boo is laughing all the way, just to taunt his opponents. "Yeah, I-a got it!" Mario responds. "What is the plan of action then?" He then asks as there seems to be visible signs of sweat appearing on his forehead, a result of expending so much energy to keep the ghost at bay. "You need to burn down the beanstalks so the sunlight can expose the ghost!" Driad yells out. At that very moment, the Boo's laughter completely stops, as he begins to panic over how the heroes have figured his weakpoint out.

Desperate to try and avert this, the spirit stops letting himself get hit by Mario and sinks into the ground, using his powers to send vines grinding across the surface of the ground towards Alex and Driad. As they lash out to take them out, the Crayzee Dayzee uses his sword to cut one down, while the boy punches the other one with enough force that it is split down the center, thus allowing him to avoid being harmed. Of course, it seems in his urgency to take the heroes down, the ghost has forgotten that its not the two he is facing that he needs to worry about, but the overall wearing Italian man. For at that very moment, he is flinging fireball after fireball to burn a hole through the beanstalks in front of the temple. With their stability compromised, gravity takes hold and forces them down onto the ground. Mario catches one of them in the palm of his right hand and turns it to ashes by summoning forth a fireball.

With that first step out of the way, Driad uses his vines to break apart the ground where he suspects the ghost might be, his actions spreading around dirt and exposing his target for Alex to then deal with. The boy rushes forward and punts the Boo in the face, sending him flying towards Mario, who turns around and grabs him by his little tail and swings him around so he is caught up in the sunlight and forced to revert to his more solidified state. The plumber then slams the ghoul against the ground, his body not rebounding this time around. "Sorry, looks like we win." With his victory now assured, Mario lets go of the Boo and quickly tosses a fireball at it to ignite the vines surrounding it, which in turn continuously damages the creature as it too is set on fire. Struggling to put the flames out as it rises into the air and rapidly spins its body around, his pained cackle fills the air until it reaches a point where he stays frozen in place and his charred body crumbles into ashes that float gently onto the ground in front of Mario.

Satisfied with the results, the plumber claps his hands together to remove the soot from his gloves before giving his signature two-finger peace sign with his right hand. Alex and Driad walk up beside him and the three heroes exchange hand claps before they look down at the ashes. "Well, that was easy. Though for a mini-boss, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The first boss should prove to be more of a challenge." Raising an eyebrow about Alex's statement, Mario turns his head a few degrees to the right and says "This isn't an RPG Alex." To which the boy responds with "Well, I suppose you were right. I guess it was just my inner geek slipping out a bit. I'll try to keep it at a minimum from now on." With a smile on his face, Alex looks on towards the temple entrance. "Now, are we certain that another ghost isn't going to come out and scare us?" He asks. "Nope!" Driad bluntly and happily states. "Yeah...That's what I thought." With nothing else noteworthy to bring up, the heroes cautiously take their first steps into the Nature Castle...

_Next Time: What does Driad really know?_


End file.
